


i will become yours and you will become mine (i choose you)

by overcomewithlongingfora_girl



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Background Bato/Hakoda - Freeform, Background Relationships, Betrothal Necklace (Avatar), Cultural Differences, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Happy, It's Really A Very Tiny Bit of Angst, Love, Marriage Proposal, Southern Water Tribe, but with a twist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:01:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25873294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/overcomewithlongingfora_girl/pseuds/overcomewithlongingfora_girl
Summary: Aang proposes to Katara. Things go exactly as planned.Until they don't.
Relationships: Aang/Katara (Avatar), Bato/Hakoda (Avatar)
Comments: 34
Kudos: 173





	i will become yours and you will become mine (i choose you)

Aang proposes on a clear, beautiful day in the South Pole. He waits for Katara’s favorite time of year – the icy summer months, when the rest of the world is playing on beaches and lying in the sun, and the South Pole, perpetually out of step, is cold and grim. For some reason, Katara adores the chilly snap of wind across the tundra and the constant, driving pressure of the snow.

Of course, Aang isn’t going to propose in the depths of summer, when the sun peeks above the horizon for a few dull hours every day. He waits until spring, what the rest of the world would call autumn, when the sun is once again clear and bright, and soon everything will be melting and brightest green. On one of those bluebird days, he and Katara go out kayaking.

As she fishes, Aang gathers seaweed and algae, trying to ignore the flopping of the fish as they die behind him. Eyes focused on the clear Arctic water, he breaks the peaceful quiet with a question. “Remember the day you and Sokka found me?”

That’s more than ten years ago now, and the memory brings a fond smile to Katara’s lips. “Yeah. We only found you because Sokka and I were fighting.”

“Yeah. Guess it’s kind of a good thing he’s so annoying, huh?” Katara arches a fearsome eyebrow and Aang holds his hands up in mock surrender. “Kidding, I’m kidding, I promise.” Katara rolls her eyes, but there’s a smile playing around her lips. For a moment, Aang just watches her as she checks the nets sunk deep in the Arctic waters. Her thick dark hair, her warm bright eyes, her quick and skillful healer’s hands. There’s a tenderness in him that almost hurts.

“Remember the first thing I said to you?”

Katara pauses. She’s been picking her way through the salt-encrusted nets, but now she looks up and smiles at him. “How could I forget? You’d just woken up in a strange place, in a strange girl’s arms. You didn’t know it then, but you were one hundred years in the future. You had no idea what had happened to you. And you asked me-”

“I asked you to go penguin sledding with me.” Aang can’t resist finishing the story, grinning at his younger self’s priorities. Katara tips her head back and laughs. Watching her, Aang thinks that even if he woke up today, he might’ve asked the same question.

Katara turns back to her work, and Aang lets a mischievous grin curve up his face. He nudges her, and she looks up, startled. “What now?”

The impatience in her voice is only pretend, and though she rolls her eyes, she’s masking a smile as she looks back at him. “What?”

“Well, will you?”

“Will I what?”

“Will you go penguin sledding with me?”

“Aang!” Katara folds her hands over her chest, trying to look stern. She’s utterly failing because she keeps giggling at the utterly innocent expression on Aang’s face. “Penguin sledding? We have work to do back at the village. And it’s…it’s…”

“It’s what?”

“It’s silly! I haven’t gone penguin sledding since – oh, no you don’t.” She stops herself before she falls into the trap he’s set for her.

“Were you going to say you haven’t gone penguin sledding since you were a kid?” Aang’s smile is positively devilish. “Because you still _are_ a kid, you know.”

“I’m always going to be a kid with you around.”

“That’s the idea!”

Huffing, Katara pretends exasperation, but she’s smiling too much for it to be believable. Aang knows that however much she protests, as soon as they have time, she’ll break away from chores and go penguin sledding with him. Surreptitiously, he slips his hand into his pocket and feels the piece of jewelry there. His heart is already leaping in his chest.

_

After traveling the world over and getting into all kinds of ridiculous trouble, Aang can definitively say that penguin sledding is one of the true joys in all four nations. The penguins aren’t harmed by it, and they don’t mind much the weight of a person, even an adult man like Aang, slung across their back, as long as the rider is gentle.

He explains all this to Katara as they huff and puff their way back up to the snowy plateau where the penguins are gathered. She smiles, half-triumphant and half-shy, the way she always does when he praises the South Pole. She likes traveling and seeing new places as much as he does, but the Southern Water Tribe will always be her home.

Throughout the afternoon, Aang has been guiding them towards a certain slide trail, one he mapped out on his glider the week before. Now, for their last ride of the day, he points Katara in the right direction and hops on a new penguin’s back before she can point out that they’re headed exactly the opposite direction of the village. He hears the hush of snow as she climbs onto her penguin behind him, and he smiles into the thick, greasy feathers.

Then it’s down and over the snow, the wind biting in his face, the feeling exhilarating, almost like flying. Whooping, they whip down the glacier, soaring across the perfect white fields of snow, with just enough momentum to carry them to the next step down, and the next, until the Arctic landscape is interrupted by a familiar dark and jagged shape.

The penguins come to a stop and Aang climbs off first, then Katara. The animals waddle off while the two humans stay where they are, staring up at the decrepit shell of a Fire Nation warship. Katara swallows, and Aang reaches for her hand.

“Oh.” She’s quiet for a moment. Aang has the urge to glance over at her, and when he does, she’s looking right at him with her luminous eyes, biting her lip. “Did you…did you bring us here on purpose?”

“Yeah,” Aang admits. He can’t lie to her. “Yeah, I…I know it’s not the best memory.”

“No, it’s not.”

“I just…” Aang draws in a deep breath. “This was the first place I really understood what had happened. That years had passed, and there was a war going on, and…” He squeezes her hand. “You were there with me. And you didn’t get mad at me when I set off a booby trap. You didn’t get upset that I insisted we check out the old wreck. You defended me when I got back to the village…”

Smiling back at him, Katara shrugs. “All I did was tell the truth. It was an accident.”

“Still.” Aang exhales, long through his nose, as he looks up at the ship. “You stood by me – you were ready to leave your village for me.”

Katara makes a face. “I mean, it was also about learning waterbending.”

“You mean it wasn’t just my good looks and charm?!” Aang feigns horror, drinking in the way she laughs. “Really though – you were the first person to believe in me, and care about me, and look out for me. You were the first person who made me feel like things were going to be okay.”

Sighing, Katara leans into his side, and he wraps his arm around her. “You were the first person to make me feel like things were going to be okay, too.”

They stay like that for a moment, leaning into each other, in the shadow of the war relic. Katara is the one to break the silence.

“It’s still not a happy memory,” she admits softly.

“No. But it’s an important one.”

_

That night, after eating dinner around the fire with Hakoda and Bato and Gran-Gran, Aang convinces Katara to go for a walk. More accurately, Bato and Hakoda convinced Katara to go for a walk. “I’m tired,” she’d moaned when Aang first asked, although he’d suspected her sudden bout of tiredness had more to do with the fire-warmed furs she was curled up in. “We went kayaking today, _and_ penguin sledding…”

“Penguin sledding?” Bato had laughed. “Been awhile since I’ve heard those words.”

“Maybe you should go sometime,” challenged Katara, and Bato had flashed a grin across the fire at Hakoda, an expression that was as much a dare as it is a smile.

“Maybe we should.”

“There’s nothing ‘we’ about it,” Hakoda griped theatrically. “I’m too old for all that.”

“I think there’s still some life in your bones, grandpa,” Bato had teased.

“I’m not a grandpa yet! Unless Katara has something to tell me.” Hakoda cast a pointed look in her direction and his daughter turned bright red.

“Dad!” she had yelped. “Okay, I changed my mind, Aang. Let’s go for a walk.”

Gran-Gran had rolled her eyes, while the two tribesmen at the fire exchanged conspiratorial glances. “Be careful on that walk!” Bato called at their retreating backs. “Make sure to use protection!”

“ _Bato!”_

“Snow protection! I meant snow protection. Why, what were you thinking?”

Both Aang and Katara’s cheeks are burning bright red as they walk away from the igloo. “I swear, they get more obnoxious every year,” Katara murmurs, shaking her head.

“Huh? Oh, yeah, definitely.” Aang is distracted, hand delving into his pocket to check that what he needs is still there. There had been a heart stopping moment after penguin sledding when he thought he’d lost it. Thankfully, he and Katara had been working on applying the principles of seismic sensing to snow and ice, and through the crystallized water, he’d felt a solid object a few feet to his left, and had recovered it before Katara even noticed something was wrong.

Now it rests in his hand, heavy and reassuring, as he and Katara pick their way over the snow fields, toward the edge of the ice. When they get to the water’s edge, they sit, crunching into the tight packed snow. It’s a gorgeous clear night, with the stars pinwheeling above seemingly close enough to touch. They’re ice-bright and clear, the moon is a disk of glowing white, the night around her black velvet, and the water hushing black and soft against the ice. In the distance, a tongue of green flame dances across the heavens, and Katara gasps.

“The aurora borealis!”

It’s perfect. It’s the perfect time. It’ll never be more perfect than this. “Katara?” Aang clears his throat, heart fluttering like a firefly in his chest. “Katara I-I have something to tell you.”

“Yeah?” she turns to him, so bright and earnest and open, smiling and absolutely beautiful in the moonlight. “What is it?”

“Katara, I…” He has a whole speech planned about traveling the world with her, and changing the world with her, and the rest of their lives. But the need to say it rises up inside him and pushes past all of that. “Katara, I want to marry you.”

“Oh.” Her hands fly to her mouth. Carefully, Aang draws the betrothal necklace from his pocket, and Katara’s eyes go wide at the sight of it. “Oh!”

“You were my first friend when I came out of that iceberg. And the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. You were always so kind, and strong, and brave enough to do what was right, even when no one else would. Remember when you disguised yourself as the Painted Lady? And when you saved my life in the Crystal Caverns?” Aang stumbles over his words, searching, desperate. He wants to make her understand just what she is to him. “I-I’m doing this wrong.”

Katara laughs, a wet laugh that tells him she’s crying a little. “No, you’re really not.”

He can’t help it – he has to hug her, pull her close to his chest. “I love you,” he murmurs into her hair, and he feels her nod fiercely against him. “I love you so much. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

“Me too,” Katara agrees, her voice muffled by cloth and warbled by tears. “I want that too.”

Aang looks up at the stars, faced bathed in moonlight, and everything in him _sings._

_

It’s a few days before Aang notices something is wrong. The first night they don’t tell anyone – they just go back to the igloo they share and fall asleep smiling like idiots at the ceiling, so wide Aang’s cheeks are sore. The next day is all about celebration – the whole village whooping and singing and pounding them on the back so hard even Katara, through her thick parka, has unintended bruises. Gran-Gran cries, and Hakoda cries, and Bato pretends he’s above all that, and then that night he drinks too much imported Fire Nation rice wine and positively _bawls._ There are letters to compose to Sokka, to Zuko, to Toph and Suki and Uncle Iroh, because even if half of those people live together, they’re all going to want their own announcement. Katara and Aang spend the afternoon giggling, deciding how to word each missive and who to send them to, and every time Aang looks up and sees her smiling face something in his chest squeezes almost painfully.

Wow. Wow! That’s his fiancée. That’s his future wife. She’s going to be his _wife._

Aang feels like the luckiest man in the world.

For three whole days.

He knows something is wrong on the second day. There’s slightly less frenzy, and in the in-between moments, when Aang sneaks glances at Katara’s face, he sees her looking a little lost. Not unhappy, just distant. Sometimes frowning, like she’s trying to solve a hard mental puzzle.

On the third day, the frown has progressed into slumped shoulders and biting her lip. She keeps rubbing at the betrothal necklace Aang carved her, which has replaced the one she’d worn since she was eight. Maybe that’s it – maybe she’s missing Kya. With renewed purpose, Aang decides to get her alone after dinner so they can talk about it. He knows if he can just get her to talk, she’ll tell him what’s wrong.

After another family supper, Katara and Aang are walking back to their place a few houses down when Aang grabs Katara’s mitten and starts to tug her past their doorway. “C’mon.”

“What, we’re not going home?”

“Not yet. C’mon.”

He leads her toward the edge of the water, where he’d proposed just a few nights ago. The view is as gorgeous as ever. This, at least, still brings a smile to Katara’s lips. He watches her for a moment, her face bathed in silvery moonlight.

“Okay, Katara. What’s wrong?”

Her voice comes out too high and too fast, the way it always does when she’s lying. “What do you mean? Nothing’s wrong.”

“You’ve been upset. Whatever it is, you can tell me.” Aang reaches out and Katara swallows before she lets him take her hand. She stays quiet. “Is it…is it about your mom?”

“No, actually,” Katara admits, in a voice so soft it’s almost inaudible. “No, it’s not…look, Aang, nothing’s wrong. Let’s just go home, okay?”

“No.” Aang digs his heels in and insists, the way Toph taught him to do when he was learning earthbending. “We’re going to talk about this, okay? I know you’re upset, and I would really like to know why, because I feel like…” Aang takes a deep breath, and forces himself to say the thing he’d been scared to admit, even to himself. “I feel like it has something to do with…this. Us. Getting engaged.”

“No!” Katara says it almost too quickly. “No, Aang, it’s not about you, it’s not about us, I, I love you. I love you, and I want to marry you, and I’m glad we’re engaged.”

“But something’s wrong.”

Katara lets out a long, heavy sigh. She traces a finger through the snow, making meaningless symbols in the icy crust. “What if I promise you it’s not important?”

“If it’s important to you, it’s important to me.”

“What if it isn’t important to me?”

“It must be, because you’re upset.” Aang thinks his counter is quite reasonable, but Katara still huffs.

“It’s just…” Now they’re finally getting somewhere. Aang waits patiently for Katara to fill the silence. “It’s just I…look, if I’m going to say this, you have to understand it’s not your fault, okay?”

A chill of worry worms into Aang’s stomach, but he makes himself nod. “Okay.”

“And you have to believe me when I say I love you, and I’m really happy, and I appreciate you.” Aang nods, and Katara squeezes her eyes shut. “And I don’t want to sound completely ungrateful, you know, because I know you worked really hard, but, but…”

“But…?”

“But the Southern Water Tribe doesn’t…we don’t do betrothal necklaces, you know?” Her voice comes out small, defeated. “I…I know that sounds stupid-”

“It doesn’t sound stupid.”

“-Whatever. I just…I’m sure it seemed like, you know, our sister tribe does it, so you probably thought we do too, and it’s a beautiful tradition, don’t get me wrong.” With horror, Aang notices that there are tears running down Katara’s face. “It’s just…so… _frustrating_ because-because…” Katara lets out an angry, teary huff, and goes to wipe her eyes. Aang wants so badly to grab her hands and apologize and comfort her, but he holds back. He can tell she has more to say.

“It’s just there’s so little of my culture left.” Katara says it in a bare, defeated whisper. “The things that I’ve heard stories about…the things unique to the Southern Water Tribe…they’re disappearing. Or they’ve already disappeared. There are so few of us now.” There’s so much pain in her voice. Aang knows that pain. “Fathers who weren’t here to teach their sons to ice dodge. Mothers who never braided their children’s hair. No waterbenders left to teach me, or for me to teach.” She swallows hard. “I mean, for all we know, there were bending forms unique to here, to the South Pole, and they’re all lost now…all gone.”

“I’m so sorry, Katara.”

“I know you are.” She offers him a watery smile. “And I know you understand. And it’s been way worse for you. Way worse!”

“It’s not a competition.”

“I know.” She sighs, scoots over across the snow to lean into him. “It just makes me sad. The things my mother did, my grandmother, my great-grandmother. It…it makes me feel connected to all of them, all my ancestors, doing the rituals and the ceremonies and the traditions.”

“Of course it does.”

“And – and-” He can feel her face screw up with indignation against his side, sees her hands ball into fists. “And the Northern Water Tribe – they just make me so _angry._ They sat by while our tribe was decimated, and now…now they send people down here to help us rebuild, and they just try to remake everything so we’re exactly like them. They want to build permanent structures in the summer, so we can live in the same place year-round, did you know that?”

Aang shakes his head. “I didn’t know that.”

“We’ve _always_ built igloos in the winter and teepees in the summer. _Always._ Because there are different needs for each season. And things like that make them think we’re backwards, and farther behind them, and we’re _not,_ and they just want to…they just want to…”

Aang takes a careful breath. “They’re…they’re only trying to help, Katara.”

“I _know_ that,” Katara snaps, her voice wobbly with more tears. “I know they think we’re trying to help but if they’re going to help _anything_ they need to _listen_ to us. They don’t know better than us just because…just because…”

“Just because more of them survived?” Aang prompts her gently. Katara nods, burying her face in his side. “Yeah. I’ve…I’ve heard the same about the Air Nomads.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. If we’d adapted…if we’d modernized and weaponized, like every other nation…” Aang shakes his head. “The monks _couldn’t_ have done that and still remained Air Nomads. It’s not in our nature. And these betrothal necklaces aren’t natural to you. They aren’t familiar or meaningful. I should’ve known that, and I’m sorry.” He sighs, gives in to the irrepressible urge to explain himself. “I guess I just thought – because of the one you always wear…”

“Yeah.” Katara sighs, letting her anger go with her breath. “It never meant that to me, though. It was always just a reminder of my mother.”

“Mmm.” Aang nods. A beat of silence passes between them. “So what would a Southern Water Tribe proposal look like?”

He’s careful to keep his voice casual, light, but Katara still shakes her head, and when she speaks, she sounds drained. “That’s…that’s the other reason I didn’t want to tell you. Even if you had known, it’s not something that you’d, um, be able to do.”

Aang nods, but he pushes her anyway. “Try me.”

Katara takes a deep breath. “In the Southern Water Tribe, when one person is proposing to another, the person doing the proposing builds a house. An igloo or a teepee, depending on the season.”

“We already have a house, but I could build another.”

“Well, that’s not it. It’s a process together – to prove that the two can make a home together? So one person builds the house, and one stocks it with food. It might be the same partner or the other one. But together they build the house, and fill it with…well, with food and pelts.”

“Oh.” A stone drops in Aang’s stomach. “Meat?”

“And furs,” Katara nods with a grimace. “And then someone cooks. If the first two tasks are done by the same partner, the cooking _must_ be done by the other partner. Or it could go first, second, first. But you’d, um, you’d have to either gather the food or cook it. It’s our way of making the proposal two sided. One person starts and the other finishes, that’s the offer and the acceptance.”

“That’s…” Aang’s lips curl up in a smile. “That’s kind of beautiful.”

“I always thought so,” Katara agrees softly. “My father built the first house my parents lived in, and he hunted seals and penguins and even polar bears for weeks before he felt ready. My mother answered his proposal when she built the fire and cooked them dinner, but she also used the pelts for clothes, and gathered fish and seaweed, and gave as much to him as he gave her.”

Aang nods, imagining the scene. “The Air Nomads…” his voice comes out husky, and he has to swallow hard. “The Air Nomads had a, um, sort of dance. Both people would be flying on gliders, and they would…” his hands make graceful shapes in the air, and then fall to his sides. “Anyway. I never learned it. I thought I would have time…”

He lapses into silence, and the two of them sit in that quiet, watching the smooth sea stretch away from them into the horizon. “I’m sorry, Katara,” Aang says finally, sincerely. “I wasn’t thinking. You don’t have to wear it.”

“Of _course_ I’m going to wear it!” Katara’s hand comes up to hold it protectively. “You made it for me!”

Aang allows himself a smile. “A happy memory?” he asks.

“Yes,” Katara agrees, nodding her head determinedly. “ _And_ an important one.”

“Good.”

Aang holds her tight, and they watch the water for a little longer.

_

By the next week, Katara knows something is up. She knows Aang too well, can see that he’s scheming and slipping away from her every chance he gets. Thankfully, Gran-Gran has offered her help, and keeps Katara under close watch for every minute she’s away from Aang. When she finally demands to know what he’s planning, Aang feigns obliviousness, and while he knows he isn’t fooling her, his obstinate ignorance at least gets her to stop asking questions.

The following week, when everything has fallen into place, he takes her on a walk again.

“ _Another_ walk?” Katara moans as she slips her boots on, faking dismay. “What lifechanging conversation are we going to have this time, huh?”

“You’ll see,” Aang tells her with a cheeky grin. Shaking her head, she follows him out the door. Aang can see her excitement in the way she trots to catch up.

He leads her toward the water yet again, but this time, when they get to the edge of the village, there’s a new igloo there, and Katara stops short. No wonder Gran-Gran has been keeping her in the house. No wonder she and Aang haven’t gone kayaking in two weeks. If they’d gone, she certainly would’ve seen this work in progress, because this igloo was actually, well, _built._ It’s not the smooth waterbending construction that sits next to where her father lives with Bato. That had been the work of a few minutes, with her and Aang combining their focus. This was something different. It’s been built by hand – _clumsily,_ she might add if she were feeling teasing – and she recognizes the handiwork in the prints of long, slender fingers that must have packed on every inch of snow.

“You built me a _house?”_

“Yeah,” Aang says shyly, glancing from Katara’s shining eyes to the structure in front of her. “Yeah, I did.”

“Oh, Aang-”

“Just wait.” There’s a smile tugging hard at his lips. “There’s more.”

Hardly daring to breathe, Katara approaches the doorway, where a heavy flap of fabric hangs down. It’s artificially stiff and black, feels solid in her hands. She darts a questioning look at Aang. “It’s Earth Kingdom cotton,” he admits, scratching his head. “I know polar bear fur is better for blocking the wind, but, um, this is the heaviest weave I could find, and it’s been waterproofed with tar-”

“It’s perfect.”

“It is?”

Katara smiles at the relieved surprise in Aang’s voice. “Not hurting animals is as much a part of you as the Southern Water Tribe is a part of me,” she tells him confidently. “Can I go in now? Can I see the rest?”

“Yeah,” Aang’s grinning so wide she can probably see his molars. “Yeah, you can.”

Katara steps into the igloo and puts her hands over her mouth. She’s never seen an igloo so _colorful._ There are dyed Fire Nation silks and woven Earth Kingdom linens spread across the floor and hung up on the walls to block the chill. The blankets around the fire are heaped suspiciously high, and when she peeks under, there’s a mountain of creamy fur that’s all too familiar. “Appa fur,” Aang admits with a shy grin. “I’ve gotten used to sleeping on it.”

Katara laughs. “Me too.”

There’s food, too – dried seaweed and algae, sea prunes that Aang must have dived to the ocean floor for – diving, at this frigid time of year! There’s a basket of potato-radishes, seeds, nuts, and grains, some of which Katara recognizes, some of which she doesn’t. There’s a fire blazing in the central pit, but when she turns to face Aang, Katara’s eyes are much brighter than the flames.

“I know I’m not a traditional Water Tribe husband,” Aang admits, letting his shoulders rise and fall in a shrug. “I don’t have dried fish for you, or sealskins, or a necklace made of polar bear claws. But I’ll travel the world for you.”

“With me.”

Aang’s smile shines in the dark room. He takes her hand. “With you.”

Katara can’t stop looking around her. “Aang. Aang, this is beautiful.”

He beams. “I’m glad you like it.”

“Aang, I love it.”

“Good.” She’s still basking in the glow of their new home, and Aang is basking in the glow of her smile. He takes a deep breath and keeps going, cautiously, checking for her reaction all the time. “I…I was thinking about it, and there are some Air Nomad rituals I’d like to maybe…do. Like, um, a wedding. I know that’s not traditional-”

Katara grabs both his hands in hers. “It is for you! And we’re doing it. I would love to do it.”

Aang nods, still grinning down at her. “Thanks. Thank you, Katara.” She goes to say something but he rushes to cut her off. He’s not done with the surprises yet. “Listen, um…” He takes a deep breath. “I know it’s really hard. Doing all this without your mom here.”

Katara bites her lip, bows her head. “Yeah,” she admits. “Yeah, it is.”

“But, you know, you still have a family.” He has this hopeful look on his face, and Katara tips her head to the side. “A big one.”

Her eyes scan his face incredulously. “Aang…?”

“Hey, little sister.” Sokka sticks his head through the doorway, and whatever else he was going to say is lost to Katara’s shrieking, which only grows louder when he stands aside and they’re all there, the lot of them, Sokka and Suki and Zuko and Toph. Their family, back together. When the hugging and squeezing and exclaiming is done, Katara stands back and looks at all of them.

“Tui and La.” She shakes her head. “I hope you’re not expecting me to cook for _all_ of them.”

The laughter shakes a shiver of snow off the roof, but no one says a word about it.

_

It’s late that night, and Katara and Aang are sleeping in their new igloo. Sokka is staying with Gran-Gran, and Toph and Suki and Zuko are crashing in Katara and Aang’s old igloo, the smooth and faultless one they made with waterbending.

In fact, the trio had been a little _too_ happy to stay in the first igloo – exclaiming over how different it was from the one Aang put together with his own two hands.

“I don’t care if this one looks more handmade,” Katara assures Aang when it’s the two of them alone again. “I love it.”

As if on cue, there’s another sprinkle of snow from above. “Okay,” Katara amends, blinking snow out of her eyelashes. “Your technique could maybe use some work.”

Aang just laughs and squeezes her tight. He’s too happy to worry about things like…well…the house he built falling apart around them. Katara sighs happily, snuggling against him. “Thank you, Aang.”

“You already said that,” he teases her, and she’s still smiling too much to even roll her eyes.

“I mean it. Thank you. This is…”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

“And I want to learn Air Nomad traditions, too,” she assures him, spinning in his arms so she’s looking him in the face. “I want to know about your culture. And to teach it to…to our children.” It sounds bold and new in the room with them. _Our children._

“We will,” Aang promises, heart swelling in his chest. “Just because we’re looking to the future doesn’t mean we have to forget the past.”

“Wow.” Even in the dim light of the dying fire, Aang can see Katara arch her eyebrows. “Is that an original thought, or am I speaking to some past avatar?”

“I’ll keep that to myself,” Aang tells her, grinning. Resting her head against his chest, Katara lets out a contented sigh, and Aang turns his smile toward the ceiling. “I can’t believe you’re going to be my wife,” he tells the ice roof above him.

Katara wiggles even closer. “I can.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hey y'all! A little different from my usual A:TLA Zukka content but I felt inspired. I saw this tumblr post a while back (sorry I do not have it saved and can't link it here) but it talked about how betrothal necklaces were really a Northern Water Tribe tradition, and how Katara didn't even *know* Kya's necklace had anything to do with betrothal, so it's unlikely that Sokka or Katara would give/get the necklaces themselves. OP also made the point that writing about Katara and Sokka giving/getting these necklaces is making generalizations about cultures inspired by Natives. Not all Natives are the same, and not all Native traditions are the same. 
> 
> I'm not trying to call anyone out because I also wrote betrothal necklaces into one of my fics and never gave it a second thought. But then someone pointed out that maybe I should give it some thought, and I'm very grateful!
> 
> Anyway, tell me what you think in the comments! Or, if you'd rather, I can be found on tumblr at overcomewithlongingfora-girl . I would love to chat, answer questions, or hear recommendations/requests!


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